Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I really should read my own blog.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

We still have time to mess this up!

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Everybody saw this coming.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

The words do not have to be perfect.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Young Idiots & Their Enablers Open Thread: Circle Gaming

Young Idiots & Their Enablers Open Thread: Circle Gaming

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We… are… SPARTANS! (But the no-homo kind, okay?)

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76Comments

  6. 6.

    jharp

    So what’s the deal with the pet calendar?

    I can’t find any information other than photo submissions are closed.

    Thanks in advance.

  8. 8.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT Genocide is unfolding in Uttar Pradesh under Modi’s handpicked Chief Minister, Ajay Singh Bisht who wears saffron like a monk and calls himself Yogi Adityanath. Most of the deaths reported during the protests that have roiled India since the last week have come from this one state. Muslims are being hunted down, their businesses burned down. Protesters are being shot at. There is an internet blackout in much of Uttar Pradesh.

    Modi did this in Gujarat in 2002. BJP and Sangh handles are openly gloating about this on Twitter. I have been tweeting about it and am writing up another post for AL to front page.

  9. 9.

    Miss Bianca

    @lamh36: Yeah, pretty sweet.

    Even funnier than Eddie dressed up as Gumby was watching those other guys lose it. It’s like, “fuck the fourth wall, man, I’m sitting next to EDDIE FUCKING MURPHY in a Gumby suit!”

  11. 11.

    eclare

    So the Christchurch murderer was just playing the circle game when he made that signal in court?  Who knew!

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    I wonder if anyone got to those cadets’ social media accounts prior to the Navy cleaning them up. I bet there would be some interesting stuff in there.

  14. 14.

    patrick II

    When I was in Navy many years ago, the circle game was a game we often played on midnight watch, that and arm-wrestling, and a couple stupid time killers. When we played it there was no below-the-waist rule. If you looked at the other guy’s hand, you got punched in the shoulder. Actually true, no racism involved. sorry.
    The game is still around. I saw Jennifer Lawrence talking about playing it on the set of Hunger Games.

  16. 16.

    Chyron HR

    @patrick II:

    “I-It’s the circle game!  J-Law plays it!  It’s totally unrelated to our well-documented worship of Donald Trump and public statements that this hand sign represents our white nationalist sentiments!”

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @eclare: So the Christchurch murderer was just playing the circle game when he made that signal in court?

    I assume they’re letting us know who they are using ASL:  Hey, world, I’m an assh*le!

  19. 19.

    Searcher

    @patrick II: There’s a bit of a deplorable gap.

    Decent people don’t want to be associated with scumbags, while scumbags have no morals.

    So scumbags can take anything they want and make it theirs for the sake of antagonizing decent people, and we can’t really fight back.  It’s been 80 years since anyone could wear a Charlie Chaplin mustache.

    We used to have some respite in things that are seen as too humiliating for manly men to be associated with, like bright pink and Hello Kitty, but given the depravity and meanness of the current generation of trolls, I don’t think those are safe if a troll got their troll up.

  21. 21.

    patrick II

    @Chyron HR:

    I can’t read their minds, and neither can you.  You know none of them.  They may be white racists, they may be playing a stupid game as we did.  I don’t think young officers at the beginning of their career would be doing that on TV where they can be identified, but it wouldn’t be the first time in my life I was wrong.

  22. 22.

    Humdog

    @schrodingers_cat: Thank you for these horror show updates. Do you see the state violence spreading to other parts of India?  I simply cannot understand the drive to wipe out neighbors over being different. Is there anyone Modi might listen to to get him to stop this?

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    @lamh36: And ICMYI Lizzo, the musical guest performance…here ya go.

    Here’s Lizzo singing two of her biggest hits from her Grammy nominated album:

    First: Truth Hurts (look for the homage to blues icon Sister Rosetta Sharpe!).

    Truth Hurts (Live) – SNL https://youtu.be/cstggp_dwZ8 via @YouTube

    Here is her 2nd performance. Her single: Good As Hell will a holiday/NOLA bounce music twist!

    Good as Hell (Live) – SNL https://youtu.be/HuENwwT5rSg via @YouTube

    Go forth and twll ur kids/grandkids/greatgrandkids that you know that singer Lizzo!

  26. 26.

    JPL

    No matter what the Academies say students embarrassed the institutions for a prank.    Good luck justifying that.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    I think it’s well past time to rebrand that as the Fucking-knee-me-in-the-crotch-as-hard-as-you-can gesture.

  35. 35.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @lamh36: Lizzo was one of a few fantastic artists who kept me sane this summer.

    Not because of a relationship break up, but because of a whole lot of equally painful, unexpected life events that knocked me off balance emotionally and forced me to take stock in what my priorities were.

    Guess what? I found out it’s simply impossible to cry if you crank up the sound of  “Good as Hell” or “Juice”. :-D

    .

  38. 38.

    tobie

    There was this article in the Military Times about the problems with white nationalism in the military in February:

    Nearly one in four troops polled say they have seen examples of white nationalism among their fellow service members, and troops rate it as a larger national security threat than Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new Military Times poll.

    It also contained the nugget that 5% of the survey takers complained they weren’t asked about “black nationalism”:

    Nearly five percent of those polled left comments complaining that groups like Black Lives Matter — whose stated goal is to raise awareness of violence and discrimination towards black people — weren’t included among the options for threats to national security.

    Hard to feel comfortable with the attitudes in the military at all and it’s deeply disturbing that the Senate stripped language requiring the military to vet for white nationalist sympathies in new recruit.

  39. 39.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Humdog: The protests have been peaceful in almost all other places, protesters are asserting pride in the idea of a democratic and secular India, its flag and its constitution. They don’t want BJP to redefine those ideals.

    Here is a protest in a town (small by Indian standards) in Tamil Nadu singing the national anthem return by Tagore, which is in Bengali which belongs to different family than the language of the state Tamil.

    There were many other such heartening scenes all over India. UP was one of the exceptions.

  40. 40.

    chopper

    i guess we can reverse the game and just punch the shit out of garbage people that make that hand sign.

  42. 42.

    Evil_Paul

    _sigh_. Yeah, we got the same game in the Canadian Armed Forces. Up here it’s called “Ball Gazer.”

    Well, fair enough. These clowns got the one freebie. Next bunch get charged. If they want to complain that this isn’t fair? Hey, you’re the ones who’re playing a game where you trap somebody into doing something by accident and getting punched.

    Can’t really complain about fair. But if you want to I’d say go whine to the White Supremacists.

  43. 43.

    oatler.

    @chopper:

    We’re captive on the carousel of time
    We can’t return we can only look behind
    From where we came
    And go round and round and round
    In the circle game

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @patrick II:

    If you’re saying that if I see anyone making that circle gesture, I can punch them and say, “What? I thought we were playing the circle game!” then I’m cool with that.

  46. 46.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Lapassionara: @Humdog: India wants to America’s back office and its IT supplier. Also Modi supporters are conscious of the country’s reputation in western eyes. I think these two pressure points can be used to make the BJP government at the Center to behave to some extent.

    Thirdly we can put pressure on Google (YouTube), Twitter and Whatsapp (Facebook) to police their platforms and stop BJP from using it as Radio Rwanda.

    Meanwhile, I am personally reporting handles that promote rape, murder and carnage.

    If you are on Twitter or other social media amplify what is happening in India, the internet bans are a strategy to keep the world in the dark.

  47. 47.

    JoyceH

    As I understand it, the okay sign is  white power signal if you hold the hand up, facing outward, with last three fingers spread. Then the spread fingers form a W and the circled fingers plus hand and wrist make the P. Held down or sideways, last fingers together and curved, I’d give the kids the benefit of the doubt and agree they’re playing a stupid game. Playing a stupid game on national television isn’t very smart, but I suspect the ones doing it have been scared out of their wits and surely know better now.

  48. 48.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne:  Maybe the Navy was being all stealthy and setting it up so when someone punches someone making that gesture they can get off with a, “Hey, I thought we were playing the circle game.”

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @patrick II:

    I’m small and wily — I can usually run away pretty fast.

    Plus no one will believe them if they say that the nice middle-aged white lady punched them in the balls.

  51. 51.

    Jay

    @patrick II:

    entire class of graduating WV Department of Corrections students gave the Nazi Salute for their class picture.

    3 Nazi Instructors got fired, the Class Photo and names got scrubbed,

    ”investigation” all over in less than a day.

    “We” are supposed to “trust” that an entire Organization that was “infiltrated” by Nazis, into senior positions of responsibility, found and fired all the Nazis in one day,

    and that an entire class of “future” Prison Guards, are just too “naive” to know what the Sieg Heil salute stands for and means,

    in the same state that happily hosted the “Unite the Right” torch parade, Nazi riot and killing sprees,

  52. 52.

    patrick II

    @Mnemosyne:

     
    No! Not the balls! — the shoulder. I won’t be responsible for your safety for ball punching.
    By the way, I was pretty good at that game. I just watched the McAvoy – Jennifer Lawerence video of them playing and I never looked at J-LO’s circled hand once.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    I mean, it seems like it would solve the problem pretty quickly. Otherwise, they’d have to publicly admit that they WEREN’T just “playing the circle game” and were making a white supremacist gesture on purpose. It’s win/win as far as I can tell.

  55. 55.

    patrick II

    @Jay:

     
    If you are telling me that a bunch of country WV prison guards are of the same quality as the cadets at West Point and the Naval Academy, that is your right.
    JLO and McAvoy while your at it. There can be no innocents.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    Bunch of dweebs and jerks who never outgrew Punch Bug (which is also a distressingly stupid ‘game’ whose amusement value continues to elude me).

  59. 59.

    Jim Bales

    One response to this is to point out that these young men are training to be leaders.

     

    LeadersOne response to this is to point out that these young men are training to be leaders.

    Leaders understand that their actions may have unintended consequences.

    Leaders accept responsibility for the unintended consequences of their actions.

    In this case, these young leaders-in-training discovered that they are game happy unintended consequence of making them look like racists.

    We do these young leaders a disservice by not holding them responsible for those unintended consequences.

    We do these young leaders (and the people they are to lead) a disservice by not holding them responsible for those unintended consequences.

    Best,

    Jim

  60. 60.

    Leslie

    As one of the tweets points out, the whole point of that homophobic “game” is to get to punch someone. So the cadets making that gesture on tv were going to … reach through the screen and punch the audience?

    Total BS.

  64. 64.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mnemosyne:

    Plus no one will believe them if they say that the nice middle-aged white lady punched them in the balls. 

    That’s what I thought when you started talking about punching Nazis’ nuts!  “Who?  Me?”

  66. 66.

    Dan B

    @Chris T.:

    I think the more interesting topics about Electric Vehicles are about VW, making up for their diesel mileage scandal, are developing chargers that Nissan Leafs cannot use.  And the issue of apartment dwellers in lower income neighborhoods having charger deserts.  Used Leafs can be had for $8,000 but our 80% minority part of town has only one charger at the far north end.  Liberal Green Seattle governed by the well off and blind to climate social justice issues.

  67. 67.

    Bill Arnold

    @schrodingers_cat:
    (1) Couple of things; when a government shuts down the internet in a region in India, how total is the shutdown? (I’ve never played with off-grid/off-cell internet connections, such as RV satellite internet; such connections could be shared with a a hotspot + extenders to get news out.)
    (2) The troll J. B. in your previous post/thread, you later said that you found them posting on richard spencer’s site? Link (or instructions)?

  69. 69.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’m gobsmacked by the BJP dogma that believes they can force two hundred million people to leave India.  Do they believe that they can do something short of the murder of millions?

  70. 70.

    painedumonde

    A few less “gentlemen” will be officers in a few years. Begone.

     

    Dang, refresh rate….

  71. 71.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Leslie:

    So the cadets making that gesture on tv were going to … reach through the screen and punch the audience?

    I think the odds are that was a white supremacy gesture.  However, I *do* know how juvenile assholes think, unfortunately.  If it was the circle game, the cadet is thinking ‘Hur hur I made the TV audience play this game about looking at penises.’  It doesn’t have to make sense or be a particularly complete thought.

  72. 72.

    cintibud

    @Jay: WV is West Virginia. The Nazis were in Charlottesville, Virginia. However that just might be because there are no large cities in W

    ETA – WV is also the home of our blog host, so they have that going for it.

  73. 73.

    J R in WV

    @Jay:

    I’m not going to defend the Department of Corrections here in West Virginia… but when you say:

    … that an entire class of “future” Prison Guards, are just too “naive” to know what the Sieg Heil salute stands for and means,

    in the same state that happily hosted the “Unite the Right” torch parade, Nazi riot and killing sprees…

    I’m going to correct your public ignorance. WEST Virginia is NOT the same state that “happily hosted the “Unite the Right” torch parade”… That was in Old Virginia, that seceded from the Union back when the Slave Owners were starting the Civil War.

    West Virginia then seceded from Virginia during the Civil War. And the Nazi Torch parade was at Jefferson’s University, over in Old Virginia… NOT in WEST By Gawd Virginia.

    Also not going to defend the white supremacists here in WV, because we have some of those despicable varmits right here. But I will bet that there are more of them in Old Virginia than in West Virginia.”

  74. 74.

    J R in WV

    Plus, even here in WV Corrections Officers are pretty much the bottom of the barrel in terms of hiring.

    So, yes, those youngsters could have been totally unaware of the significance of the Nazi salute, barely aware that there were German Nazis back in their great granddad’s day. Country boys — totally unaware of that salute and it’s meaning today.

  76. 76.

    EthylEster

    I am in favor of re-purposing it as a “I am an asshole” sign.

    And the double < sign to the left of the screen keeps getting in the way when I try to edit a comment on the extreme left of the comment box.

    IOW the << overlaps the comment textbox. Like now. This line of text is at the same level at the <<.  I think the << “control” should be narrower. Or the left edge of the comment box  could be moved to the right a bit.

    Yes, one can avoid this by scrolling but IMO this falls into the category of overlapping screen elements.

     

    Ugh..another dead thread.

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